What do women want? Ask a dude. Ask an awesome dude.

Oh, ladies, you poor, deluded ladies, so unaware of the basic facts about yourselves. If only you had an objective source for information on the mystery that is you! Happily, a Men’s Rights Redditor by the name of nigglereddit has decided to throw a giant clue your way:

You may want to step back and take a look at the entire thread here, especially nigglereddit’s original post about the different ways he and his wife have responded to being new parents, in which he mocks his wife for what sounds very much like undiagnosed postpartum depression, blaming her misery not on brain chemistry or sleep deprivation or any of a zillion other things that tend to stress out new mothers but on all those terrible women’s magazines and books and TV shows she reads and/or watches.

Also, he pats himself on the back for being a totally cool and awesome dude who handles both his job and his duties as a father in a super awesome way — way better than his wife handles her new motherhood — because he’s a man, damnit, and totally able to see the world in an objective way.

Needless to day, this meaty slab of misogynist shitthatneverthappened got dozens up upvotes from the r/mensrights regulars.

Comments

Wouldn’t it be funny to dump him in a pub in Glasgow? He’d try to interrupt a group of friends when one called another a jammy bastard to explain that they were suffering from self-hatred brought on by feminist misandry, be baffled when it was explained that this was more or less a term of endearment, and then stomp off in a huff when his attempt to explain the concept of misandry to the assembled drunks resulted in them referring to him as an ignorant gobshite.

[–]nigglereddit[S] 1 point 4 days ago
The issue at hand is why you think that women are supposed to get their reality from the
men in their lives.

I worded it poorly, I apologise.
I was wrong to say that men were the only place they could get reality. However, the very prevalent habit of portraying men as untrustworthy, unreliable, emotionally incompetent and laughable has robbed a great many women of what could be a hugely valuable source of support, compassion and criticism.
I think that’s terrible and I hope you agree. I’m all for women succeeding in every walk of life, but the reality is that success is so dependent on dealing with people that if you discard half of that pool of potential allies and supporters before you even start, you’re crippling your chances from day one.
Again, apologies for my out of place comment. When I reread it I realised I was wrong and should have switched my brain on before writing.

So, wait, David said the comment was stupid, condescending, and sexist. The person who made the comment later apologized for it, because it was stupid and condescending, and admitted he was wrong to make it.

… what exactly is intellectually dishonest, here? It’s not magically against the rules to criticize what someone said just because they agree with the criticism. That would be nonsense.

“It’s intellectually dishonest to reply to the words people write instead of somehow knowing what they meant to say”

No, it’s intellectually dishonest for a person to write an article pillorying a person according to the least charitable interpretation of a comment they made, which they later negate with an apology for a poor choice of words and a clarification that their intention was not to convey the idea that the author is pillorying them for.

the reality is that success is so dependent on dealing with people that if you discard half of that pool of potential allies and supporters before you even start, you’re crippling your chances from day one.

Tell that to the MRA douchebags who consider women’s presence in the workforce as like, the worstest thing ever because they actually have to work with women.

I too am all for people getting the fuck over themselves and cooperating with others, regardless of gender, race, religious affiliation or political leaning. Learning how to work with people you may not necessarily consider your best friend is part of being a grown up and part of being a working stiff. The problem is, in order to have cooperation, both parties need to be willing to cooperate. Which does not appear to be something you are advocating. And I don’t think it’s off-base to note that the workplace is way different than personal life. I have to put up with my coworkers and people from other departments (some of whom hang up on me, which is super duper professional, donchaknow). I don’t have to put up with a douchecanoe husband who’s idea of being “supportive” is laughing at his wife on the internet for having a hard time adjusting to being a mom.

I don’t consider your opinion suspect because you’re a man. I consider your opinion suspect because you’re a brazen asshole.

Firstly, no I’m not a troll, nor am I nigglereddit, nor do I currently identify as an MRA. I am just a guy who occasionally comments on internet forums and points out intellectual dishonesty. I don’t need to make a clarification of what my position on what a women’s reality is or anything else because I have made no such claims. So don’t impute positions unto me that I do not hold or have not stated.

Secondly, the most charitable criticism I can give Mr. Futrelle, now knowing that he wrote this article before nigglereddit gave his apology, is that he has still been intellectually dishonest. Rather, wait for clarification of nigglereddit’s comment (its one of the first posts after all), or actually ask for clarification, Mr. Futrelle storms ahead a fires out an article based on the least charitable interpretation of what the OP wrote and then basically labels him as a misogynist. Then when a post made on the same day, by the same author refutes the premise of Mr. Futrelle’s article and explains that he misspoke, Mr. Futrelle doesn’t bother to make an effort to retract his article or make an edit stating that he was mistaken. Nor has he done this when this has been pointed out to him by myself, but rather makes some lame excuse about how he hadn’t read it at the time.

Thirdly, if Mr. Futrelle is able to browse reddit, then he is able to notice it consists of forums for conversation. I’de imagine he understands that in a conversation, people tend to clarify their positions as it progresses, and especially when asked for clarification. I would think he would also understand that in a conversation, if you think someone has said something you find offensive, the first thing you do is ask or wait for clarification, rather than immediately label them an asshole or impute positions unto them that they may not hold. It’s called being charitable and being intellectually honest.

I’ve read several articles on this site, on r/feminism, on r/mensrights, and plenty of other related sites. I have come to the conclusion that those who are so inclined to label this person and that article as misogynistic, have become so good at detecting misogyny that they can see it even when it isn’t there, even when affording an argument’s charitable interpretation would prove otherwise and even when the presumption of another’s decency of character would only lead one only to disagree. That isn’t honesty, it isn’t intellectual, its looking for things that make you point and shriek “Misogyny!”

How is interpreting “the one place women are supposed to get their reality is from men” as “men are the only source of reality in women’s lives” the least charitable interpretation? It is literally the only interpretation possible. That’s what phrases like “the one place” mean – they are pretty damn specific.

Well, I guess we could have assumed he was a barely-competent writer with absolutely no skill at expressing himself, and that when he typed out a comment with only one realistic interpretation he actually meant something completely different, but I’m not really feeling that as a “more charitable” route.

I am just a guy who occasionally comments on internet forums and points out intellectual dishonesty.

Hahahaha, okay, champ, sure you do. You go on with your little internet crusade against those silly feminists, and we’ll go on giggling at the irony of a dude being super offended that we’d call someone a misogynist for saying men are the only reasonable people while simultaneously insisting that he knows better than everyone else about what constitutes sexism.

It’s called hyperbole, champ. You see, sometimes people don’t speak in ways that admit of perfect, absolute, literal interpretation. We can still get someone’s drift or understand their point, without perfectly literal, perfectly accurate language. That’s one reason why we can enjoy things like pros, poetry and metaphor. You see, when niggelreddit wrote the “the one place they could have got their reality”, he didn’t actually mean the sole, only place for reality, and he said as much in his following post. He was using hyperbole, he intended “the one place” to mean “a place” but chose to emphasize its importance by phrasing it that way.

Hyperbole is a common part of language, I think you even used it in your false attribution to me. Am I really part of an organized and energetic religious campaign against feminists? Do you really think that I claim to know what constitutes sexism better than everyone? Really everyone, I think there is not a soul in the world who knows better than I? According to your logic, that is the only possible interpretation of those statements, so I guess so.

As a super-offended, omniscient, internet crusader, I find it interesting that I don’t feel or hold any of these positions, and that these positions can’t be honestly inferred from my comments, yet my interlocutors seem adamant about pinning them to me. Perhaps though, such brilliant random people on the internet, like you or the other commenters here, have a better view into my psyche than I do.

Note: Just for clarities sake, I employed a literary device known as sarcasm in that last paragraph. I hope it doesn’t confuse any of you.

So, Al, if a given outrageous statement is something you basically agree with, but don’t want to explicitly admit to it, you call it “innocuous hyperbole”. If, on the contrary, it’s something you don’t like, you call it “intellectual dishonesty”. Brilliant.

Al, I get you. So when Senator Jon Kyl made the claim that “well over 90% of Planned Parenthood’s activity is devoted to performing abortion” that was just hyperbole! And when later, after being widely ridiculed, he had his staff clarify that what he said was “not intended to be a factual statement” that later clarification actually undid what he said, making all those who ridiculed him earlier intellectually dishonest. Because they should have known that later he would (kind of, sort of) retract what he’d said earlier.

Note: Just for shits and giggles, I employed a literary device known as sarcasm in that above paragraph. I hope it doesn’t confuse you, Al.

So apparently we are being big meanie-meanfaces by taking issue with a comment that the commenter himself later apologized for and retracted. Huh. It’s almost as if everyone but Al recognizes that that comment was at best woefully inadequate at expressing its intended meaning and at worst an honest reflection of the author’s misogyny that he felt the need to hastily backpedal from upon realizing how awful it made him look.

P.S. Can you please respond to all my posts with long-winded, poorly-written rants? I could use a few more giggles.

@Al the charitable interpretation is that we’re using a different definition of troll than the broader Internet community uses (although large swathes of the Internet use it to mean “people who come here just to disagree with us”, which is not far from the original definition anyway). You should have awaited clarification before writing your tl;dr about how you’re not a troll.

Thanks for your posts cloudlah. I don’t have an upstanding internet citizen cape, but maybe I could borrow yours? Also I wasn’t confused by your sarcasm (but thanks for the concern), but I am confused by your lack of a question, as you seem to pose one then use different punctuation. Are you making a statement or an inquiry? I am also confused by your equation of a speech given by a senator to the senate floor and some random person posting a casual comment on an online discussion forum. I guess our social expectations of people don’t vary at all according to circumstance or occupation, no?

Al, champ, if you think I was asking a question you don’t understand sarcasm. Or questions. Or perhaps mirrors — you do know that’s not your identical-twin-in-reverse staring back at you, don’t you?

So when you say:

You see, sometimes people don’t speak in ways that admit of perfect, absolute, literal interpretation. We can still get someone’s drift or understand their point, without perfectly literal, perfectly accurate language.

that only applies to people who are not senators. Gotcha. Carry on being wrong on the internet.

“So, Al, if a given outrageous statement is something you basically agree with, but don’t want to explicitly admit to it, you call it “innocuous hyperbole”. If, on the contrary, it’s something you don’t like, you call it “intellectual dishonesty”. Brilliant.”

Yes Amused, that’s precisely right, my posts weren’t about the actions of Mr. Futrelle, they were about me trying to the wisdom of double standards, in order to prove the point that “men are the only source of wisdom” or something. I think I chose the wrong forum to share this wisdom, because so many of you seem to be so very wise in the ways of things like double standards, invective and intellectual dishonesty. You and the other commenters must have telepathy, because you people are able to read my thoughts better than I can. All I can say is that I’m impressed.

I don’t wanna speculate, Cloudiah, that would be uncharitable of me. So I’m gonna withhold judgement until Al comes back to explain to us the meaning of every single sentence he types, just to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.

Yes Amused, that’s precisely right, my posts weren’t about the actions of Mr. Futrelle, they were about me trying to the wisdom of double standards, in order to prove the point that “men are the only source of wisdom” or something.

The fact that he posted this travesty of a sentence after lecturing cloudiah about her grammar amuses me.

Yes Amused, that’s precisely right, my posts weren’t about the actions of Mr. Futrelle, they were about me trying to the wisdom of double standards, in order to prove the point that “men are the only source of wisdom” or something. I think I chose the wrong forum to share this wisdom, because so many of you seem to be so very wise in the ways of things like double standards, invective and intellectual dishonesty. You and the other commenters must have telepathy, because you people are able to read my thoughts better than I can. All I can say is that I’m impressed.

Aha. Well, All, now that you’ve said all that, I want it clarified for me: Are you saying what you are saying, or are you saying something other than what you are saying, because you are using hyperbole? See, I can’t use telepathy, and as you’ve kindly shown us, a verbal expression of one’s thoughts cannot be taken as an accurate accurate of those thoughts. Heaven forbid I interpret your comment uncharitably by assuming you mean what you say.

Lol the guy gave up. Can’t blame him. By the way cloudiah you talk some mad BS but your vocabulary lacks the punch. If you really wanna bully people out of here you’re really gonna need more vitriol son. And Tulgey you jumped the shark with the Russian text. Either way ya’ll are all quite the lovely bunch

Dick – I don’t know if you know the term “necroing” with threads; it means reviving a thread that’s long since died. Much better to engage in current ones. The old ones tend to get jumped on by trolls trying to get the last word.

Since this post has apparently been revived (or necromancied, this one was long dead) — was this Al Mr. Al — because if so, I’m amazed y’all put up with him as long as you did. Probably not though, Al seems to be able to string together a coherent thought.

Also, by all the gods is this a travesty of English —

Yes Amused, that’s precisely right, my posts weren’t about the actions of Mr. Futrelle, they were about me trying to the wisdom of double standards, in order to prove the point that “men are the only source of wisdom” or something.

Yes Amused, that’s precisely right, my posts weren’t about the actions of Mr. Futrelle; they were about me trying to [insert a verb here] the wisdom of double standards, in order to prove the point that “men are the only source of wisdom” or something whatever it is the original post was trying to claim.

I’m wary on that last fix, as I’m not quite sure what Al meant, but that run on sentence needs a semi-colon and a verb, and that last clause just plain needs help.

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